2025 UT App 15
THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
STATE OF UTAH,
Appellee,
v.
JOSEPH M. FLORES,
Appellant.
Opinion
No. 20241254-CA
Filed February 6, 2025
Second District Court, Ogden Department
The Honorable Joseph M. Bean
No. 131901930
Emily Adams, Freyja Johnson, and Hannah LeavittHowell, Attorneys for Appellant
Derek E. Brown and Marian Decker,
Attorneys for Appellee
Before JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME, RYAN M. HARRIS,
and AMY J. OLIVER.
PER CURIAM:
¶1 Joseph M. Flores has filed a notice of appeal seeking
appellate review of a final judgment and sentence rendered
against him on November 14, 2016. This appeal is before the court
on its own motion for summary disposition based on lack of
jurisdiction due to an untimely filed notice of appeal.
¶2 In 2016, Flores was convicted of sexual abuse of a child and
sentenced to prison. No notice of appeal was received by the
district court or this court.
¶3 Some eight years later, on November 21, 2024, Flores filed
a letter with the Second District Court. The letter explained that
State v. Flores
Flores had attempted to file a notice of appeal in 2016 by
depositing it in the prison mail system but that it had been
returned “multiple times.” Enclosed with the letter was a copy of
what Flores claimed was his original notice of appeal and
accompanying declaration, both dated November 28, 2016. The
declaration stated, “I, Joseph Flores hereby declare that I did place
the foregoing Notice of Appeal in the Prison Mailbox on the 28th
Day of November, 2016 . . . .” The declaration went on to state, “I
declare under criminal penalty, under the law of Utah that the
foregoing is true and correct . . . . Mailbox Rule considers the
document filed on the day it was placed in the [D]raper prison
mail box, pursuant to U.R. App. P. 21(g).” The declaration did not
include a statement that postage had been prepaid. Additionally,
Flores did not include any envelopes documenting the original
mailing of the notice of appeal.
¶4 Generally, a notice of appeal “must be filed with the clerk
of the trial court within 30 days after the date of entry of the
judgment or order appealed from.” Utah R. App. P. 4(a).
However, the prison mailbox rule—codified in rule 21 of the Utah
Rules of Appellate Procedure—deems a notice of appeal to be
filed on the day it is placed in the prison mail system, giving an
inmate the benefit of the doubt when it is reasonably plausible
that a court document was delayed or even misplaced for some
period of time in the prison mail office before being sent to the
court. In 2016, at the time Flores purportedly filed his original
notice of appeal, the prison mailbox rule was contained in rule
21(f) and provided as follows:
Papers filed by an inmate confined in an institution
are timely filed if they are deposited in the
institution’s internal mail system on or before the
last day for filing. Timely filing may be shown by a
notarized statement or written declaration setting
forth the date of deposit and stating that first-class
postage has been prepaid.
20241254-CA 2 2025 UT App 15
State v. Flores
Id. R. 21(f) (2016) (emphasis added). 1 Although Flores attempts to
invoke the prison mailbox rule, that attempt fails for two reasons.
¶5 First, Flores’s declaration did not state that first-class
postage had been prepaid, as required by the rule. This is not a
mere technicality given that Flores claims to have had the notice
of appeal returned to him “multiple times,” which may have been
for lack of postage.
¶6 Second, the manner in which Flores finally filed his notice
of appeal in the district court does not fall within the scope of the
prison mailbox rule. The prison mailbox rule contemplates a
situation in which a court document actually reaches the court for
filing, albeit belatedly. In such situations, the rule permits the
court to accept the filing as timely based on the inmate’s
declaration. In a situation like the one presented here, where a
notice of appeal has allegedly been returned and then sent years
later with a different letter purporting to explain the late filing,
the declaration does not have the same import. Accordingly, we
determine that the prison mailbox rule is applicable only in cases
where a document actually reaches an appellate court directly
through the prison mail system via its allegedly timely deposit
into the system. 2
1. In 2020, due to the addition of subsection (b), many of the
subsection numbers within rule 21 were changed. See Utah R.
App. P. 21, amendment notes. The current post-2020 version of
the prison mailbox rule is substantively similar to the previous
iteration, but it is now found in rule 21(g) instead of rule 21(f).
Id.
R. 21(g)(2). Notably, Flores’s notice of appeal—which he claims
was sent in 2016—cites to the current (post-2020) version of the
rule, stating that it can be found in “U.R. App. P. 21(g).”
2. If an inmate did, in fact, deposit a document on time and
comply with the institution’s mailing rules but the document was
improperly returned to the inmate, then the appropriate remedy
(continued…)
20241254-CA 3 2025 UT App 15
State v. Flores
¶7 Because Flores’s declaration did not comply with the
prison mailbox rule and the notice of appeal did not come to this
court directly, the prison mailbox rule does not apply, and his
notice of appeal is untimely. This court lacks jurisdiction to
consider an untimely appeal. See Serrato v. Utah Transit Auth., 2000
UT App 299, ¶ 7,
13 P.3d 616. Accordingly, the appeal is
dismissed.
would be for the inmate to file a motion to reinstate the time to
appeal so that the district court may consider evidence of the
prison mail office’s error and determine whether “the defendant
was deprived of the right to appeal through no fault of the
defendant.”
Id. R. 4(f)(1). Such a motion would be subject to the
timeliness and other requirements of rule 4(f) of the Utah Rules of
Appellate Procedure.
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